June 9, 2026 // Doors 6:30PM Show 7:30PM // In the Chamber

Tickets $10 – $75 + fees

All season long, our Emerging Creators Unit has been forging a path of artistic discovery. At Queer Pride, participants Dae Conrod, Tyler Cunningham, and Lili Robinson conclude their time with a sharing of newly developed work and insights into their creative processes and learnings.

Dae Conrod, Tyler Cunningham, Lili Robinson // ECU participants

Amanda Cordner // ECU director

The Emerging Creators Unit is an artist-driven, mentor-supported creative model for strongly motivated emerging queer and/or trans artists, facilitated this year by artist Amanda Cordner. The Emerging Creators Unit offers an intensive opportunity to develop your artistic practice and producing skills. Artists are invited to apply with a project — or a seed of a project — that will serve as a vehicle to advance their artistic practice.

Featuring:

Dae Conrod is a white, trans multi-disciplinary artist living in Tkaronto by way of Mi'kma'ki. They are a writer, actor, nap enthusiast, and abolitionist. They are grateful for the many opportunities for growth and exploration they’ve had at places like Sheridan College, The Second City Toronto, and Neptune Theatre. As well as the people they’ve had the pleasure of exploring with, including the Liberation Practice Field and The Bus Stop Theatre Cooperative (Kjipuktuk). They believe love is a revolutionary force and hope to remind you of that through their work and presence. They hope you laugh with beloveds today.

Tyler (he/they) is addicted to ASMR slime videos but is also a performance artist. Across Canada and Europe, Tyler has collaborated with other artists and spirits to create performances, audio walks, music theater, and installations that have taken them to the ruins of city walls, playgrounds, experimental music venues, the Atlantic Ocean, sex clubs, and bathrooms stalls. Lately, Tyler has enjoyed wearing inflatable elephant costumes. He is overjoyed to be making his Buddies Debut as a member of the 2026 ECU Cohort!

Lili Robinson is a Black queer creator with political transformation and collective healing central to their work. They draw from lineages of Afrofuturism, Black horror, and Black Feminism to get at the things that haunt and the things that are hard to talk about. Companies/programs she’s worked with include: the Cultch, the Arts Club, Rumble Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Neworld Theatre, Queer Arts Festival, rEvolver Festival, Obsidian Theatre, Crossroads Theatre, and the Banff Playwrights Lab. Her award-winning play, Mx, laid the groundwork for the murky, genderbendy neobouffon clown world she’ll be returning to with reap. This is Lili’s Buddies debut.

The Emerging Creators Unit Showcase is part of Buddies Queer Pride 2026. Visit buddiesinbadtimes.com/pride for all events and shows.